


"Happy Things Go Together" Collection

by argylemikewheeler



Category: The Goldfinch (2019), The Goldfinch - Donna Tartt
Genre: (usually) established relationship, M/M, Short and Prosey, Slice of Life, adult theo and boris, and usually a healthy one at that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:28:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27664721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argylemikewheeler/pseuds/argylemikewheeler
Summary: A collection for all the short, purple-ish one-shots based off snippets of poetry or prose, all surrounding Theo and Boris, together or apart-- or deeply missing the other.(inspo post linked in notes for reference)
Relationships: Theodore Decker/Boris Pavlikovsky
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	1. Favorite: Alone With You

**Author's Note:**

> Theo and Boris try to go out more often. But one night at a pub, they let the rest of the room fall away as they settle into each other’s company, and eventually head for home.
> 
> Inspired by [this](https://firstfullmoon.tumblr.com/post/620988265801154560/frank-ohara-from-biotherm-for-bill-berkson) snippet of prose.

The room was too crowded. There were so many people; the pub packed from the edges of the worn bar counter and up flat against the walls. The lights were dim, and the room was foggy with swirling cigarette smoke. There was a smoldering butt of a cigarettes in the ash tray by Boris’s elbow, resting but not abandoned on their high pub table. They had claimed the table tucked farthest into the corner. The wall’s wood paneling came up to Boris’s waist, and the wallpaper above it was stained with nicotine, and peeling at the corners from humidity. Boris’s side kept bumping into the thin wood edging as he fumbled with Theo’s lapels; his hands trying to linger their way up to his face. His elbow nudged the ashtray. Theo reached out, reactively-- although maybe instinctively-- to move it further from the edge of the table.

Boris grabbed Theo’s glasses and pulled them off his face, pushing his own body closer and kissing Theo with heat far too messy for public witnessing. Theo made a short noise into Boris’s mouth-- a cross between annoyance and discomfort-- but cupped Boris’s arm. He let himself be coiled into Boris’s body. Again.

The initial kiss-- the spark-- hadn’t meant to meet such an inferno. Boris and Theo were just having a beer, just running into some of Boris’s old friends at all his old favorite spots. Just being the type of people that have outings, rather than staying up in their apartment half clothed and always half a laugh away from grabbing their partner to kiss their face and over every inch of skin that brought them such warmth and joy. Theo and Boris were just trying to be social. But sometimes, Theo struggled with the commitment more than Boris.

Crowded places made Theo squirm, made him feel trapped and buried in his own coffin. But he kept telling Boris to take him to those cramped places-- _exposure therapy_ , he always told Boris, a bit furious with which to be disagreed.

At this pub, at only nine in the evening, Theo was frowning down into the head of his beer-- there was _so_ much foam, and Boris thought at first he was just disappointed with the bartender. Then Boris watched him sigh, he entire body shivering as his shoulders sagged and his eyes fluttered with a quick blink.

“Not having fun?”

Theo turned and looked up at Boris, his expression immediately becoming as light as the airy foam on his beer-- and just as pale. He smiled. “The most.”

Boris could hear the lie, even over the group shouting by the dart board.

“Something is bothering to you.” Boris grabbed Theo’s elbow, squeezing it teasingly. His fingers found bone too easily through the thick of his suit jacket. “You are lying to me.”

“I’m not.” Theo was wishing. He had the same weak shine in his eyes when he stood before his mother’s new grave. Boris wanted to shake the sadness from Theo, find the weak spot in his armor and let all the pain rattle its way out.

“Talk to me here. No one is listening-- barely anyone speaks English here.” Boris reached up and turned Theo’s face toward him. “Want to go home?”

“Home.” Theo repeated. The word was sharp, but it didn’t break any flesh. It was a defensive weapon, suddenly, pointed away from the table at the crowds. “Boris?”

“Potter.” Boris nodded, eyes fixed on Theo’s.

“Why do you take me to these things?”

“Parties? These are my friends-- my people, Potter. And you are also my people. They _must_ meet. All happy things go together, yes?” Boris liked to act like he was always telling a joke, or a light explanation to cover the exploration and exposure of his own beating heart. And Theo always never let him get away with it.

He leaned in toward Boris, tucking his head against the wall and speaking into Boris’s ear, hidden to the rest of the room, and even the noise drowning them out:

 _i love you_.

Theo’s mouth was sour, bitter and almost repulsive with the taste of beer, but Boris wasn’t bothered. He was trying to taste the words Theo had said to him before they slipped away-- or were swallowed by the fear of publicity.

Those words weren’t sour. They weren’t sweet either. They had no taste. They were so natural to them both that it was barely noticeable when Boris would catch them; but he could feel it in the body that swelled under his hands and pressed against him.

They parted when it was still evident no one had noticed them. Theo shoved his glasses back on his face while Boris picked up his cigarette again. With a short laugh-- _not_ a giggle, Theo always said-- Theo told Boris he was hungry. He wanted to get out of there, but that he _wasn’t_ leaving because he was scared. There was an important difference. Boris felt honored to be told the lines of love and fear. He felt more educated every day.

Their beers were finished, their glasses abandoned, and the table left with a hefty tip before they were weaving in and out of the crowd to the door. Boris wasn’t sure what Theo had in mind to eat. In what way he was hungry: ferociously, like he was when he would come down from a trip; petulantly, when he craved childish comfort food that he could never place or name, only the place settings in which he ate them; or achingly, when his body finally woke up and reminded him it, too, needed to be carried along with all the baggage he had weighing on him.

They walked the city as if it was abandoned. Only them. It would’ve felt empty, like they were circling a loss, if they weren’t following a direct line to their apartment. Home being the only end to every route.

They ate two-day leftover tiramisu in bed, one fork between them. Theo held it the whole time, feeding Boris in between his own bites. The gave Boris the most chocolate and every part of lady finger in their slice. They refrained from tasting the sugar on each other’s lips, seeing how it would taste to have the plate be a lover. When the actual plate was empty, and put down on the floor, they retired to their pillows and into the arms of the other. Boris unbuttoned his own shirt and tried to snake out of it without leaving Theo’s hold. Theo pushed it over his shoulders, feeling the stretch of his back without agenda.

Theo sighed. His shoulders didn’t sag, his eyes didn’t weep, his body didn’t ache. It hummed instead, sweet and long, arms wrapping around Boris and pulling him flush against his body. Boris grabbed Theo in return, before realizing he was out of turn, reading the moment incorrectly. He softened his grip and let it simply be an undirected safety net. A band-aid over a scar rather than a gushing cut.

Into the dark and against Theo’s shoulder, Boris whispered a return to the call of the evening:

_i love you, theo, from the moon back to my heart. all around and backwards. i love you fully._

Boris hoped that was enough. He wanted to give Theo more, but he did not know how.


	2. Ask the Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theo asking about Boris's childhood (written in second person)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: allusions/references to child abuse.
> 
> Inspired by: ["Ask the moon. Ask what it has witnessed"](https://artfully-wayward.tumblr.com/post/634633909537226752/linda-pastan-from-a-poem-titled-why-are-your)

Go ahead. Ask the moon what he has witnessed. You will not like how he responds: with a scoff, with a laugh, with the unsettling denial that he has seen nothing. That only means he has seen wordless things. Things that exist in a realm of the unspeakable, where words don’t dare form. They are committed to memory in a blur-- a safety measure to make your question unanswerable. What _has_ he witnessed?

Eventually, a week after you ask, the moon answers. He is drunk but trembling from fear. The threat isn’t present. It’s been buried for years, but neither of you know that, and you stand guard around the moon’s confession. There’s blood in his voice; broken bones in his sobs; swollen bruises in his grasps at your hand, your face, your shoulders. There is nothing soothing found in your voice. It is empty and scratching. It isn’t even a whisper. It’s a weak apology. Not for the childhood, but for even asking.

The moon shies away from your apology-- becoming a mere crescent in his seat-- and demands that you take it back. You take the words away from him; they were never spoken to him as a child, and they are not to be spoken then. Not when you aren’t the one meant to deliver them.

Instead you begin to weep too. You’re angry, unsure why the world has mishandled the sweetest boy and shown him the depth of suffering before promising a chance at joy. Your tears burn you-- a sun flaring in the empty sky.

The moon’s skin is pale, as it has always been. You run your hands over the landscape carefully, knowing it for years, but only then noticing the way the craters have been formed. Left there by previous unkind hands. The ones who created the pale skin first, were also the ones that chose to crack and score it.

You can’t understand who would ever create and try to destroy a masterpiece. Art, once made, is life. It is beating and it thriving. You hold your borrowed art piece-- the moon who found its way to you-- and kiss it. The feeling isn’t quite light, but it isn’t darkness. It’s a shadow, a flitting ache of extinguished hope into a smoldering ember that lives furious, but unwilling to flare up again. It is a soft kiss; both your appetites have been cut by revived resignation. By the quiet tears that are dampening your pillows and slipping over your lips.

You kiss the moon and you ask it again, what it has witnessed. You hold the moon as it tells you it’s witnessed too much. You believe it. You know it to be true. You never ask again, but it’s not the last time you will hear an answer.


	3. hold your body, cradle us both.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theo is upset and the only response Boris has is to hold him, hold all of him, including the part that is hurting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by [this collage post](https://theodeckeronlyfans.tumblr.com/post/633141246325620736), specifically "I want to hold your body"

Boris said it once, and Theo _thought_ he could ignore it. He kept anxiously walking around their bedroom, putting the laundry away in the dresser. Boris stepped in front of Theo when he was empty handed. The basket was empty as well, not even a stray sock left for contemplation. Theo had to acknowledge he could hear everything with unnerving clarity:

“ _I want to hold your body_ ” Boris said, short but smooth. It wasn’t choppy or unfamiliar. He knew, and intended, exactly what he was saying.

“You want to... what? Why?” Theo wasn’t playing dumb, but rather wanted to avoid the intimacy of being seen, being noticed, even by Boris.

“Want to hold what is wrong.”

“Oh, so _I’m_ wrong? That’s me?” It was the first thing that came to Theo’s mind, and immediately out of his mouth.

“No-- what is inside. It bothers you. Cuts deep in you, Potter. How you are sad fills you up. Is.. Is like _blood._ Goes all the way up to your head and drowns you. Cannot get out so you try to drown the drowning. Drinking! So much of it all the time-- fuck, knows I do too. That is why we are matched perfect.” Boris held Theo’s shoulders, first at arm’s length before stepping closer. He was holding him already. “Now, though, let me hold body. Hold the blood.”

It wasn’t a question of _touching_ or _getting Theo close_. Nothing sexual or even romantic. Theo was being asked to let Boris hold all the ache and torture inside of him. Let Boris curl up with the deep, churning desire Theo barely tamed to stare up at the moon with eyes slowly loosing sight and heart slowly loosing tempo. Let Boris become uncomfortably familiar with every last strain of disease braided together to make Theo the _boy_ he was then. Boris was asking Theo to let him hold his body and take all his pain. Or at least borrow it for the night.

And while it felt like a betrayal to Theo’s own self-punishment, Theo stepped forward and pressed himself against Boris’s body. Boris’s arms wrapped around his shoulders and his hands splayed over his back as if bracing for a sprung leak. He hooked his chin over Theo’s shoulder and began shushing him. Theo was unaware he was crying-- or that it was a possibility.

Theo let Boris hold his blood and his body. Suddenly all the pounding in his ears felt like music, like a calm lullaby he could fall asleep to, pressed against Boris’s warmth and comfort.


End file.
